Associating barcode data with an image file

(19)

(11)

EP 1 605 377 A3

(12)	EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION

(88)	Date of publication A3:
	31.05.2006 Bulletin 2006/22

(43)	Date of publication A2:
	14.12.2005 Bulletin 2005/50

(21)	Application number: 05253544.0

(22)	Date of filing: 09.06.2005

(51)

International Patent Classification (IPC):

G06F 17/30^(2006.01)

(84)	Designated Contracting States:
	AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HU IE IS IT LI LT LU MC NL PL PT RO SE SI SK TR
	Designated Extension States:
	AL BA HR LV MK YU

(30)

Priority:

09.06.2004 US 865584

(71)	Applicant: Ricoh Company, Ltd.
	Tokyo 143-8555 (JP)

(72)	Inventor:
	Barrus, John W. c/o Ricoh Innov. Inc Suite115 Menlo Park 94025-7022 CA (US)

(74)	Representative: Mounteney, Simon James
	Marks & Clerk 90 Long Acre London WC2E 9RA London WC2E 9RA (GB)

(54)	Associating barcode data with an image file

(57) Information decoded from a barcode or other machine readable code within an image file is stored as character-based data in an auxiliary field, such as a comment field, of the image file. Subsequently, the information can be extracted from the auxiliary field so as to avoid the need to repeat the image analysis and decoding operation. In one aspect, the extracted data is validated to ensure that it is consistent with the machine-readable code.

Search report